BRONNER v DETROIT
No. 160242
Michigan Supreme Court
May 27, 2021
507 Mich 158
Clement, J.
Chief Justice: Bridget M. McCormack; Justices: Brian K. Zahra, David F. Viviano, Richard H. Bernstein, Elizabeth T. Clement, Megan K. Cavanagh, Elizabeth M. Welch; Reporter of Decisions: Kathryn L. Loomis
This syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
BRONNER v DETROIT
Docket No. 160242. Argued on application for leave to appeal January 7, 2021. Decided May 27, 2021.
Keith Bronner sued the City of Detroit in the Wayne Circuit Court seeking no-fault benefits. Bronner was a passenger on a city-operated bus when the bus was involved in an accident with a garbage truck operated by GFL Environmental USA Inc. The city self-insured its buses under
In an opinion by Justice CLEMENT, joined by Chief Justice MCCORMACK and Justices ZAHRA, BERNSTEIN, CAVANAGH, and WELCH, the Supreme Court, in lieu of granting leave to appeal, held:
An agreement between an insurer and a vendor that requires the vendor to reimburse the insurer for the cost of mandatory benefits the insurer had to pay out as a result of the vendor’s
- The general rule of contracts is that when voluntarily and fairly made by competent persons they shall be held valid and enforceable in the courts. However, when there are definite indications in the law that a contractual provision conflicts with public policy, the contractual provision must yield to the public policy. In this case, the Insurance Code,
MCL 500.100 et seq. , did not expressly prohibit the parties’ indemnification agreement. Nonetheless, the Court of Appeals panel construed the indemnification provision as a variation on contractual provisions that purport to shift liability for payment of no-fault benefits in a manner that does not comport with the no-fault act and that the Supreme Court has struck down in previous cases. For instance, in Citizens Ins Co of America v Federated Mut Ins Co, 448 Mich 225 (1995), the Supreme Court held that a car dealership could not unilaterally shift liability for no-fault benefits to fully insured borrowers of loaner vehicles because doing so violatedMCL 500.3101(1) , which requires the owner of a vehicle to maintain security for residual liability insurance. And in State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co v Enterprise Leasing Co, 452 Mich 25 (1996), the Court held that when a vehicle was rented, the lessor of the vehicle could not enforce a lease condition that shifted responsibility to the lessee’s no-fault insurer to provide mandatory benefits in the event of an accident. In Universal Underwriters Ins Co v Kneeland, 464 Mich 491 (2001), on the other hand, the Court upheld a contract provision obligating a customer who borrowed a vehicle from a car dealership to assume all responsibility for damages sustained by the vehicle while it was in her possession. The Court held that the contract in Kneeland sought nonmandatory collision coverage and, therefore, the contract provision did not improperly shift damages that were not legally able to be reallocated under the Insurance Code. The Court of Appeals panel concluded in this case that under Kneeland, the existence in the no-fault act of various reimbursement mechanisms for no-fault insurers implicitly precluded the enforceability of the indemnification agreement. However, this analysis failed to consider Kneeland in the context of Citizens Ins Co and State Farm. This context was demonstrated by the Court’s decision in Cruz v State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co, 466 Mich 588 (2002). In Cruz, the insurance policy made payment of no-fault benefits contingent on the injured person submitting to an examination under oath, which potentially conflicted with the Insurance Code’s requirement that no-fault insurers pay benefits within 30 days of receiving proof of fact and the amount of the loss. The Court in Cruz sought to harmonize the contract provision with the Insurance Code, holding that examinations under oath were permissible when used to facilitate the goals of the no-fault act and when harmonious with the no-fault insurance regime. When Citizens Ins Co, State Farm, Kneeland, and Cruz are read together, it is apparent that the comprehensive nature of the Insurance Code’s regulation of no-fault insurance serves to ensure that there is applicable insurance for accidents and that benefits are paid. The indemnification provision in this case did not implicate the same concerns as the provision in Cruz; in order to do so, a contractual provision must, at minimum, relate to the insurance of motor vehicles or the payment of benefits resulting from motor vehicle accidents. The indemnification agreement did neither and so did not jeopardize the availability of applicable insurance or the payment of mandatory benefits. As a result, no improper shifting of liability contemplated by Kneeland was implicated in this case. - The Court of Appeals misconstrued provisions of the Insurance Code that permit no-fault insurers to seek reimbursement for payment of some benefits as implicitly excluding any other reimbursement mechanism, such as the indemnification provision that was at issue in this case. In doing so, the Court of Appeals effectively relied on the expressio unius est exclusio
alterius canon, that in stating some options, other options must not exist. The Court of Appeals identified the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association (MCCA), MCL 500.3104 ; the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan (MACP),MCL 500.3171 ; andMCL 500.3116 , which allows insurers to impose a lien on tort damages recovered by some no-fault beneficiaries, as the exclusive reimbursement opportunities for no-fault insurers under the act. Rather than representing the exclusive means for reimbursements, these statutory provisions respond to specific problems, unrelated to the issue that was presented in this case. For instance, the purpose of the MCCA is to spread the cost of catastrophic claims across all no-fault insurers in Michigan and to equalize competitive imbalances between larger and smaller insurers. Rather than being a substitute for reimbursement, it is effectively an entitlement for insurers. The MACP is a benefit to persons injured in motor vehicle accidents who otherwise do not have applicable insurance benefits. In other words, the MACP is a mechanism created by the Insurance Code through which the Legislature carries out a scheme of general welfare by obliging insurers to act as insurers of last resort for injured persons with whom the insurer does not have an existing insurance relationship. This does not affect an insurer’s ability to freely enter into contracts with vendors that may include indemnification provisions. Finally,MCL 500.3116 allows an insurer to recover from its beneficiaries by reducing PIP benefits to the extent that the insured has received equivalent compensation from tort judgments arising from out-of-state accidents, accidents with uninsured motorists, and from intentionally caused harm.MCL 500.3116 does not prevent an insurer from contracting with a vendor to reach an indemnity agreement. In Cruz, the Court observed that the provision of some discovery tools in the no-fault act did not necessarily preclude the parties from contracting for the use of other discovery tools, such as examinations under oath. Similarly, the no-fault act’s reimbursement options are not comprehensive and do not preclude parties from contracting for other reimbursement methods. In this case, the indemnification agreement did not relate to the insurance of motor vehicles or the payment of benefits resulting from accidents involving motor vehicles, did not alter the relationship between the insurer and its insured or beneficiaries, and did not transform the nature of benefits paid by the insurer to beneficiaries into something else. It therefore did not conflict with the Insurance Code.
Reversed.
Justice VIVIANO, concurring, agreed with the result reached by the majority for many but not all of the reasons stated in that opinion and wrote separately to highlight the issue of the appropriate analytical framework for addressing whether the no-fault act precluded enforcement of the indemnification agreement and his conclusion that the majority opinion relied too heavily on ascertaining the broad purposes of the no-fault act. The core issue was whether the parties’ contractual indemnification agreement was unenforceable because it violated public policy as represented by the no-fault act. Justice VIVIANO noted that caselaw contained various standards for determining whether certain provisions of the no-fault act had abrogated the common law; some cases held that the intent to abrogate must be clearly stated in the statute, while others indicated that the comprehensiveness of the statutory scheme can indicate abrogation (an approach that resembles a field-preemption analysis). He stated that the majority adopted the latter methodology in this case without expressly examining whether it was appropriate. Under a field-preemption analysis, a court would examine whether the no-fault act has impliedly preempted parties from contracting for indemnification via a provision like the one in this case. To the extent that a field-preemption analysis was applicable in this case, Justice VIVIANO disagreed with the manner in which the majority applied the analysis. He noted the ease with which extratextual
KEITH BRONNER, Plaintiff, and ANGELS WITH WINGS TRANSPORT, LLC, Intervening Plaintiff, v CITY OF DETROIT, Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff-Appellant, and GFL ENVIRONMENTAL USA INC., f/k/a RIZZO ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, INC., Third-Party Defendant-Appellee.
No. 160242
Supreme Court of Michigan
FILED May 27, 2021
CLEMENT, J.
In this case, we consider whether a no-fault insurer—or, as here, a self-insurer—may legally contract with a vendor for indemnification of the no-fault insurer for the cost of no-fault benefits that the insurer is obliged by law to pay when the vendor’s negligence caused the injury for which the benefits are compensation. We conclude that such an agreement is legal and reverse the contrary conclusion of the Court of Appeals.
I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On September 25, 2014, Keith Bronner was a passenger on a bus operated by the City of Detroit. The bus was in an accident with a garbage truck operated by GFL Environmental USA Inc.1 The city self-insures its fleet of buses under
GFL’s garbage truck was operating under a contract that GFL had signed with the city in February 2014. Section 9.01(a) of that agreement provided that GFL
agree[d] to indemnify, defend, and hold the City harmless against and from any and all liabilities, obligations, damages, penalties, claims, costs, charges, losses and expenses . . . that may be imposed upon, incurred by, or asserted
against the City . . . to the extent caused by . . . [a]ny negligent or tortious act, error, or omission attributable in whole or in part to [GFL] or any of its Associates[.]
Shortly after Bronner sued the city, the city filed a third-party complaint against GFL, invoking this indemnification agreement. In June 2016, GFL moved for summary disposition, arguing that the city was “attempting to circumvent the explicit requirements of the No-Fault Act3 by improperly shifting its burden onto [GFL] through language found in an unrelated service contract between Detroit and [GFL], which clearly violates public policy and the legislative intent behind the No-Fault Statute.” The trial court denied this motion and instead granted summary disposition in favor of the city. In February 2017, the city reached a settlement with Bronner, and the trial court then ordered GFL to pay the city $107,529.29 to cover the PIP benefits paid by the city,4 plus certain other expenses.
In the Court of Appeals, GFL renewed its argument that the indemnification agreement circumvented the Insurance Code’s5 no-fault rules and was therefore void. The Court of Appeals agreed and reversed in an unpublished opinion.6 The Court of Appeals panel emphasized the comprehensive nature of the no-fault system, which includes only a few explicit mechanisms by which a no-fault insurer may recover the cost of benefits paid
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
The question before the Court is not the meaning of the indemnification agreement between the city and GFL as such. GFL’s argument in this Court does not concern the proper interpretation of the parties’ contract, and GFL does not argue that the indemnification sought by the city is beyond the scope of that contract. Rather, the question is whether the Insurance Code precludes the contract provision at issue. In other words, the question is whether the provision “runs afoul of the public policy of the state” in the form of “the policies that . . . are reflected in . . . our statutes,” Terrien v Zwit, 467 Mich 56, 66-67; 648 NW2d 602 (2002), such as the Insurance Code. Whether a contract provision is invalid on these grounds is a question of law subject to de novo review. Id. at 61. “This Court [also] reviews the grant or denial of summary disposition de novo to determine if the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Maiden v Rozwood, 461 Mich 109, 118; 597 NW2d 817 (1999).
III. ANALYSIS
We have held that “ ‘[t]he general rule [of contracts] is that competent persons shall have the utmost liberty of contracting and that their agreements voluntarily and fairly made shall be held valid and enforced in the courts.’ ” Terrien, 467 Mich at 71, quoting
No-fault insurance in Michigan is “a comprehensive scheme of compensation designed to provide sure and speedy recovery of certain economic losses resulting from motor vehicle accidents.” Belcher v Aetna Cas & Surety Co, 409 Mich 231, 240; 293 NW2d 594 (1980). “In general, where comprehensive legislation prescribes in detail a course of conduct to pursue and the parties and things affected, and designates specific limitations and exceptions, the Legislature will be found to have intended that the statute supersede and replace the common law dealing with the subject matter.” Millross v Plum Hollow Golf Club, 429 Mich 178, 183; 413 NW2d 17 (1987). Although Millross was a case about the dramshop act, we have applied this same principle in the no-fault context. In particular, the Court of Appeals drew upon our line of cases construing the comprehensive nature of the no-fault law as prohibiting certain shifts of liability for no-fault benefits to invalidate the indemnification agreement at issue.
The first case in this line is Citizens Ins Co of America v Federated Mut Ins Co, 448 Mich 225; 531 NW2d 138 (1995). In that case, a car dealership gave a customer a “loaner”
We extended Citizens Ins Co in State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co v Enterprise Leasing Co, 452 Mich 25; 549 NW2d 345 (1996). There, we held that when an automobile is rented out, the lessor of the vehicle may not enforce a lease condition shifting responsibility to the lessee’s no-fault insurer to provide mandatory no-fault benefits if an accident occurs—even if the lessee agreed to this lease condition. Id. at 27-28, 35. We offered various reasons for this conclusion, but one, which the Court of Appeals referred to here, was that the intent of the no-fault system is to hold the owner rather than the operator of a vehicle primarily
The driver cannot defeat the provisions of the no-fault act by stating that the owner need not pay insurance. Because the driver cannot bind the driver’s insurer, a driver who agreed to shift coverage would remain solely liable for damages caused by use of the vehicle. The rental car would be left uninsured under the terms of the rental agreement stating that the owner provides no insurance. This lack of coverage violates the no-fault act. Even though an injured party could attempt to obtain compensation from the driver, the no-fault act is intended to protect injured parties from having to pursue such suits. Even if the driver qualified as self-insured, we would not allow the rental car companies to avoid the Legislature’s intent that a vehicle owner be primarily responsible for providing coverage. Just as the car rental company cannot shift liability to a driver’s insurer, it cannot shift liability to a driver personally. Either shift of responsibility away from the owner would violate the act because it requires owners to provide primary coverage. [Id. at 35-36.]
On the other hand, we gestured toward a limit to the principle established in Citizens Ins Co and State Farm in Universal Underwriters Ins Co v Kneeland, 464 Mich 491; 628 NW2d 491 (2001). In Kneeland, as in Citizens Ins Co, a car dealership loaned an automobile to a customer while it was working on her vehicle. Id. at 493. The customer signed an agreement when she borrowed the vehicle in which she “agree[d] to assume all responsibility for damages while [the] vehicle [was] in h[er] possession.” Id. (emphasis omitted). While she was driving the vehicle, she was in an accident causing more than $3,700 in damage to the vehicle. Id. The dealership and its insurer paid for appropriate repairs but then sued the customer to enforce the agreement she had made when she borrowed the vehicle, seeking compensation for the cost of the repairs. Id. We expressed concern that the term “damages” in the agreement “could refer to any harm caused to a third party’s person or property, i.e., it could reach damages for which no-fault insurance
The Court of Appeals panel here construed the indemnification provision at issue as a variation on the sort of liability-shifting that these cases have prohibited. In particular, it emphasized certain hedging language from our Kneeland opinion.8 In interpreting the word “damages,” which the vehicle borrower agreed to accept responsibility for in the Kneeland contract, we observed that it could encompass mandatory no-fault benefits and, citing State Farm, we noted that such a shift of liability might violate the Insurance Code. Id. at 496-498. We stated:
We express no view regarding whether State Farm would control the legality of the contract [in Kneeland]. Th[e] agreement and the one addressed in State Farm are arguably different in scope and effect. We merely observe that an argument is available that the parties’ agreement, if it reaches beyond optional collision damages, is illegal. [Id. at 497 n 3.]
The Court of Appeals panel concluded that this left open whether benefits that the no-fault law requires to be paid out could be shifted and that the existence of various reimbursement
The Court of Appeals’ analysis of Kneeland is flawed, however, as it does not read Kneeland in the context of Citizens Ins Co and State Farm, which came before Kneeland. This is best demonstrated by reviewing Cruz v State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co, 466 Mich 588; 648 NW2d 591 (2002). The insurance policy in Cruz made payment of no-fault benefits contingent on the injured person submitting to an “examination under oath” (EUO), id. at 590, and the question was whether this provision was compatible with the Insurance Code’s requirement that no-fault insurers pay benefits “within 30 days after an insurer receives reasonable proof of the fact and of the amount of loss sustained,”
Cruz’s analysis offers critical insight into the nature of what the no-fault law comprehensively regulates. It described the no-fault system as “a comprehensive legislative enactment designed to regulate the insurance of motor vehicles in this state and the payment of benefits resulting from accidents involving those motor vehicles.” Id. at 595 (emphasis added). When Citizens Ins Co, State Farm, Kneeland, and Cruz are read together, it becomes apparent that the comprehensive nature of the Insurance Code’s regulation of no-fault insurance functions to ensure that there is applicable insurance for accidents and that benefits get paid. Citizens and State Farm both struck down agreements that purported to rearrange which insurer had to pay benefits, while Cruz struck down a policy provision that interfered with the payment of benefits. State Farm also noted that agreements that purport to rearrange which insurer is supposed to pay benefits also run the risk of leaving no insurer available to pay benefits. Meanwhile, Kneeland upheld an agreement that did not relate to the payment of mandatory benefits.
The indemnification agreement at issue does not implicate the Cruz concerns. There is no dispute that the bus was “insured” (inasmuch as the city had satisfied the Secretary of State it could self-insure under
The Court of Appeals similarly misconstrued the portions of the Insurance Code allowing no-fault insurers to seek reimbursement for payment of some benefits as implicitly excluding any other reimbursement mechanism (such as the indemnification provision at issue). It identified the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association (the MCCA),
First, the MCCA “was created by the Legislature in 1978 in response to concerns that Michigan’s no-fault law . . . placed too great a burden on insurers, particularly small insurers, in the event of ‘catastrophic’ injury claims.” In re Certified Question, 433 Mich 710, 714; 449 NW2d 660 (1989). “Its primary purpose is to indemnify member insurers for losses sustained as a result of the payment of personal protection insurance benefits beyond the ‘catastrophic’ level . . . .” Id. at 714-715. The MCCA spreads the cost of these catastrophic claims across all no-fault insurers in Michigan to equalize competitive imbalances between larger and smaller insurers and make the amount of cash on hand
Second, the MACP is a benefit to persons injured in motor vehicle accidents who otherwise do not have applicable insurance benefits. It imposes, by statute, the obligation of providing no-fault benefits to persons injured in motor vehicle accidents if an applicable no-fault policy cannot be identified,
Finally, the limited opportunity under
When we upheld the theoretical viability of EUOs in no-fault policies, we observed that “[t]he discovery tools provided in the [no-fault law] are not comprehensive” and
IV. CONCLUSION
GFL argues that the city should not be treated any differently than more traditional no-fault insurers. We agree. If an ordinary insurance company reached an agreement with the vendor it hired to plow its parking lot in the winter that the plower would reimburse the insurer for accidents caused by the plower’s negligence, such an agreement would be enforceable under today’s ruling. That the city has far more opportunities to reach such agreements—and traditional insurers far fewer—is presumably offset by the fact that insurers are in the business of issuing no-fault insurance, while the city is in the business of providing a full panoply of municipal services and self-insures incidentally to that role. Regardless of the differing opportunities for an insurer to reach an indemnification
Elizabeth T. Clement
Bridget M. McCormack
Brian K. Zahra
Richard H. Bernstein
Megan K. Cavanagh
Elizabeth M. Welch
KEITH BRONNER, Plaintiff, and ANGELS WITH WINGS TRANSPORT, LLC, Intervening Plaintiff, v CITY OF DETROIT, Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff-Appellant, and GFL ENVIRONMENTAL USA INC., f/k/a RIZZO ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, INC., Third-Party Defendant-Appellee.
No. 160242
Supreme Court of Michigan
VIVIANO, J. (concurring).
I agree with the result reached by the majority for many but not all of the reasons given in its opinion. I write separately to again highlight one larger issue that has escaped sustained attention in this area of the law: the appropriate analytical framework for addressing the vendor’s claim that the no-fault act precludes enforcement of the contractual indemnity provision at issue. See Meemic Ins Co v Fortson, 506 Mich 287, 300-301 n 7; 954 NW2d 115 (2020) (noting the unsettled state of the interpretive framework in this area). Whatever approach we may decide to adopt in a future case, I believe the majority’s approach here relies too heavily on ascertaining the statute’s broad purposes.
The core issue, as the majority states, is whether the parties’ contractual indemnity agreement is unenforceable because it violates public policy as represented by the no-fault act. In our most recent opinion addressing this general topic, we observed that our caselaw contains various standards for determining whether the no-fault act, or various provisions of it, has abrogated the common law and thereby precludes the parties from incorporating certain common-law defenses in their insurance contracts. Id. at 300-301 n 7. Some of our cases hold that the intent to abrogate must be clearly stated in the statute, whereas other cases indicate that the comprehensiveness of the statutory scheme can indicate abrogation. Id.
The majority today opts for the latter standard, which is how the case was argued and decided below, although no one—including the majority—has expressly examined whether this is the appropriate interpretive methodology for assessing this issue. In adopting this approach, the majority’s framework resembles a field-preemption analysis by asking whether the no-fault act has impliedly preempted parties from contracting for indemnification. See generally Mich Gun Owners, Inc v Ann Arbor Pub Sch, 502 Mich 695, 702-708; 918 NW2d 756 (2018) (discussing preemption in general and field preemption specifically). Some support exists for this approach. For example, we have often used the term “preemption” when discussing abrogation. See, e.g., Kyser v Kasson Twp, 486 Mich 514, 539; 786 NW2d 543 (2010). More directly, the Delaware Supreme Court has held that because these concepts are so similar, a preemption-like analysis is
To the extent that a field-preemption analysis applies here—and I would take the opportunity in a future case to more closely analyze this question—my only significant disagreement with the majority is how it applied that analysis. It is difficult to determine when a field has been impliedly preempted by a statute. Scalia & Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (St. Paul: Thomson/West, 2012), § 47 (discussing the presumption against federal preemption of state law). At bottom, field preemption “is really ‘a species of conflict preemption,’ ” in that it is triggered when a legal provision trenches upon (i.e., conflicts with) a statute’s occupation of a field. Id., p 290, quoting English v Gen Electric Co, 496 US 72, 79 n 5; 110 S Ct 2270; 110 L Ed 2d 65 (1990). That a conflict lies at the heart of field preemption is important to keep in mind because it is very easy for the field-preemption analysis to “exalt extratextual purpose above statutory text.” Note, Preemption as Purposivism’s Last Refuge, 126 Harv L Rev 1056, 1057 (2013). The reason is that “field preemption essentially impl[ies] additional statutory clauses beyond the statute’s text, clauses that mandate preemption.” Id. at 1064. In addition, “choosing the correct field definition” is difficult and critical because “[d]efining the field at a certain level of generality becomes the entire game.” Id. at 1067.
In this case, by investigating the no-fault act’s few scattered provisions concerning reimbursement, the majority thoroughly demonstrates that the act does not occupy this area of law. See ante at 11-14. And through the same analysis of these specific statutory provisions, the majority ably explains why the indemnity agreement at issue does not directly conflict with the operation of any other provision in the no-fault act.1 This analysis, in my view, is generally sufficient to dispose of the case. It shows that the no-fault act does not occupy the field of indemnification and that none of the handful of relevant provisions conflicts with the indemnification contract at issue.
I therefore cannot agree that the majority’s assessments of the sweeping scope and purpose of the no-fault scheme have much, if any, analytical significance. That is, I cannot agree that the enforceability of the indemnification contract at issue turns upon whether a court considers it to be consistent with the broadly characterized statutory goals of
As I said at the outset, I agree with the conclusion the majority reaches and with much of its work in getting there. I agree that the no-fault act is not a comprehensive regulation of indemnification agreements and that none of the pertinent statutory provisions conflicts with the agreement here. Therefore, I agree that the indemnification contract does not violate the no-fault act and should be upheld. I do not believe, however, that to reach this conclusion we should rely on the statute’s abstract goals as defined by this Court. While the proper interpretive framework remains somewhat unclear—in particular, whether preemption principles can illuminate the interpretation of the statute—I cannot subscribe to a methodology that relies so heavily on statutory purposes.3 For these reasons, I respectfully concur.
David F. Viviano
Notes
A second troubling aspect of the majority opinion is the imprecise words it uses to describe when the purposes of the no-fault act preclude enforcement of a contract: if the provision “implicates” or “relates to” the purposes. It is uncertain how these criteria will be met, as it seems likely that many provisions in an insurance contract will “implicate” or “relate to” either insuring motor vehicles or paying benefits. The majority appears to give these terms a limited scope, implying that a provision implicates or relates to a purpose only if it results in denying insurance or benefits owed under the act. But if that is so, why does the majority define the purposes so broadly? There are specific statutory sections that relate to insuring vehicles and paying benefits. Under Cruz, a court should examine those particular sections to determine whether they are contravened by the contractual provision at issue. By generalizing the purposes of the no-fault act, the majority today suggests that contractual agreements are in jeopardy even if they do not violate a particular provision but instead have some connection with a broadly conceived statutory purpose. See Preemption as Purposivism’s Last Refuge, 126 Harv L Rev at 1067.